The site is really biased towards giving, obviously, but as a result it creates some weird outputs. For example, I can say that I make $1000/year in the US and it'll tell me I'm in the "richest...
The site is really biased towards giving, obviously, but as a result it creates some weird outputs. For example, I can say that I make $1000/year in the US and it'll tell me I'm in the "richest 59% of the world population." However, I think you'd have a really hard time arguing that someone making $1k/year in the US is "rich." And then it starts trying to convince a person making $1k/year to give away 10% of that? What?
I see what point it's trying to make, but it just feels a bit of an odd calculation to make unless you are making a lot of money (in excess of living costs).
I guess that's the point I was trying to get at - absolute currency earnings aren't very meaningful without taking into account the relative cost of achieving those earnings (e.g. what it costs to...
I guess that's the point I was trying to get at - absolute currency earnings aren't very meaningful without taking into account the relative cost of achieving those earnings (e.g. what it costs to sustain and educate yourself).
Yeah, I was kinda confused by it at first, considering I entered my monthly household income. "Hey, you're poorer than half the planet, wanna help the bottom 10% so the rich can accumulate even...
Yeah, I was kinda confused by it at first, considering I entered my monthly household income. "Hey, you're poorer than half the planet, wanna help the bottom 10% so the rich can accumulate even more capital?"
It's a cool visualization, but its staticness makes it feel... disingenuous. It doesn't even consider the fact that people who might need the help they're talking about could visit the site. Heck, enter 100€/a and it'll tell you that you could get insecticide bednets for you and your partner if you save 10% for a year...
I'd like to join the 10% pledge based on current income, I'm at about 5% right now, but everything else is going into retirement savings to make up for all the bad years. The calculation doesn't...
I'd like to join the 10% pledge based on current income, I'm at about 5% right now, but everything else is going into retirement savings to make up for all the bad years.
The calculation doesn't take into account the relative cost of living or debt, either. I suspect that being in the top 1% globally doesn't necessarily mean that you're in the top 20 - 30% in your native country.
The vast, nearly logarithmic differences in income scale vs. cost of living mean that 10% is a much different proposition for someone making 50,000€ than 5,000,000€.
There are some pretty big issues with such an over-simplified view of income. Consider, for instance, that you typically need to pay rent/mortgage. If you don't, you live on the streets or (if...
There are some pretty big issues with such an over-simplified view of income. Consider, for instance, that you typically need to pay rent/mortgage. If you don't, you live on the streets or (if you're lucky) temporarily at a shelter. If you're on the streets, you can't easily keep yourself or your clothing clean, and odds are you're not going to get decent sleep and will be either jailed, fined, or forcibly relocated. You'll be lucky if you don't lose your job under those circumstances, in which case you'll go from having an income to not having an income. You also typically need to pay for transportation so you can get to your job. Whether that's a car payment, insurance, and gas; bicycle maintenance; or your bus fare, you're going to be shelling out money.
There are a number of required expenses like this, which you can consider a sort of "tax" for living within a developed country.
In many places in the world, you don't pay for certain things, like food. Instead, you hunt and gather and live rather nomadically, or you grow your own food instead. You build your own shelter using what's around you, without the need for building permits. Hell, maybe you live in a developed country and pay a ton in taxes and thus have a low post-tax income, but those taxes eliminate other expenses like healthcare from your pile of bills.
Then there's purchasing power parity. If you make $30,000/year in the U.S., then that income gives you greater purchasing power in rural areas and absolute shit purchasing power in very large cities (e.g. San Francisco). You can quite literally live like a king on that money in some countries, but in others you'll be lucky to manage to pay your bills. What might cost only pennies in some places could cost several, dozens, maybe hundreds of dollars elsewhere.
This is why the cost of living index is a thing.
As an aside, I can't stand that interface. Forcibly scrolling me to the next section before I've even had a chance to finish reading the current one is terrible UX, and I have a fairly decent reading pace.
I think a valuable addition would be to compare the income to a location-adjusted cost of living. Then add something like "if you don't meet that, don't bother donating, we'll bother someone else....
I think a valuable addition would be to compare the income to a location-adjusted cost of living. Then add something like "if you don't meet that, don't bother donating, we'll bother someone else. And if you meet it, it could suggest giving 10/20% of disposable income away, and maybe 50% for illustration purposes.
A cool way to think about this would be the fish in a pond Example 1 is your country is the size of the pond and your income is the size of fish Or what it the world was one giant pond how big of...
A cool way to think about this would be the fish in a pond
Example 1 is your country is the size of the pond and your income is the size of fish
Or what it the world was one giant pond how big of a fish are you
... and yet, somehow, I still earn only just enough to make ends meet. As lots of other people have already pointed out, this website is extremely misleading. It fails to take into account the...
you are in the richest 9.8% of the world's population
... and yet, somehow, I still earn only just enough to make ends meet.
As lots of other people have already pointed out, this website is extremely misleading. It fails to take into account the cost of living.
Some years ago, I attended a talk by Sir Bob Geldof (paid for by my then-employer - long story). In his talk, he said that if the whole developed world donated just 2% of its GDP to the undeveloped world, poverty would be solved instantly. Since then, I've made it my goal to donate 2% of my post-tax income (I figure my taxes are already paying for a form of charity as welfare payments) to charities. (I have two preferred charities, and I give 1% to each.)
But 10%? That's a bit much. I'm not religious. I don't do tithes.
A bit of factual information and some suggestions on how best to help others is offensive to you? There's a lot more I typed and deleted here, but I'll leave it at this: why?
A bit of factual information and some suggestions on how best to help others is offensive to you?
There's a lot more I typed and deleted here, but I'll leave it at this: why?
I do not find the posting offensive. I should have been clearer, I apologize. I find the topic of people suggesting how I should be charitable or soliciting monies from me offensive.
I do not find the posting offensive. I should have been clearer, I apologize. I find the topic of people suggesting how I should be charitable or soliciting monies from me offensive.
I've been reading the wonderful 80 000 Hours Career Guide, and they have a link to this site in Part 3. It's honestly amazing to see, how much more you have than most other people and how much...
I've been reading the wonderful 80 000 Hours Career Guide, and they have a link to this site in Part 3. It's honestly amazing to see, how much more you have than most other people and how much good even 10% of your income may do, including saving at least one person's life a year.
(If they could also stop stealing the scroll, that would be nice…)
This is not really fair. Yes, my family's income miiight get us almost above the mean of the world in terms of income, but what does that mean, and how come we can give up on 1/10 of our income?...
This is not really fair. Yes, my family's income miiight get us almost above the mean of the world in terms of income, but what does that mean, and how come we can give up on 1/10 of our income? Most of that money pays the bills and the foodstuffs. We can maybe freely use nearly a quarter of it in the summer when we don't need to pay obscene amounts for heating. And we need heating Nov--Mar. Let's discard that, and let's discard our non vital needs, and let's say we need to spend 6/10 of our income to be able to live. That leaves 1/10 of income per person per year. And this tells me that we could give up one persons yearly allowance to charity, or each of us a quarter of what we have. And this is a gross simplification, ignoring say educational costs (my brother is uni student, has scholarship; I'll do masters this fall), commute, clothing, etc. And we're lucky enough to not pay rent. All the while when obscene amounts of money is poured into making stupid wars and rushing around in helicopters and driving cars that drink petrol and iPhones and round trips to cities light years away for dinner. Hope that's a joke. But an offensive joke then, because we're a family of 4 that tries to live a decent life with the ~TRY5000/year that's left to us after taxes, bills and foodstuffs, and giving 10% of that means we can't have a few fun moments for us, like having a coffee out or hanging out with friends, or any emergency money. If it was 1%, 2%, maybe, but 10% of net income is a huge amount of money. It's more than a month's expenses. I'd love to help, but I can't be that selfless, sorry. Go ask your governments to spend less on building and selling killing machines, and exploiting Africa and Southeast Asia (not-so-)behind the curtains please. Also, ask the people who spend my month's worth of life and leisure expenses on a fancy dinner table.
Also, that's is a horrible horrible website. You don't need ajax.google.com to calculate a few percentages, and why do you need JS if you're already making a GET to the server w/ form values? These guys like asking too much of everything, apparently.
The site is really biased towards giving, obviously, but as a result it creates some weird outputs. For example, I can say that I make $1000/year in the US and it'll tell me I'm in the "richest 59% of the world population." However, I think you'd have a really hard time arguing that someone making $1k/year in the US is "rich." And then it starts trying to convince a person making $1k/year to give away 10% of that? What?
I see what point it's trying to make, but it just feels a bit of an odd calculation to make unless you are making a lot of money (in excess of living costs).
I guess that's the point I was trying to get at - absolute currency earnings aren't very meaningful without taking into account the relative cost of achieving those earnings (e.g. what it costs to sustain and educate yourself).
Yeah, I was kinda confused by it at first, considering I entered my monthly household income. "Hey, you're poorer than half the planet, wanna help the bottom 10% so the rich can accumulate even more capital?"
It's a cool visualization, but its staticness makes it feel... disingenuous. It doesn't even consider the fact that people who might need the help they're talking about could visit the site. Heck, enter 100€/a and it'll tell you that you could get insecticide bednets for you and your partner if you save 10% for a year...
I'd like to join the 10% pledge based on current income, I'm at about 5% right now, but everything else is going into retirement savings to make up for all the bad years.
The calculation doesn't take into account the relative cost of living or debt, either. I suspect that being in the top 1% globally doesn't necessarily mean that you're in the top 20 - 30% in your native country.
The vast, nearly logarithmic differences in income scale vs. cost of living mean that 10% is a much different proposition for someone making 50,000€ than 5,000,000€.
There are some pretty big issues with such an over-simplified view of income. Consider, for instance, that you typically need to pay rent/mortgage. If you don't, you live on the streets or (if you're lucky) temporarily at a shelter. If you're on the streets, you can't easily keep yourself or your clothing clean, and odds are you're not going to get decent sleep and will be either jailed, fined, or forcibly relocated. You'll be lucky if you don't lose your job under those circumstances, in which case you'll go from having an income to not having an income. You also typically need to pay for transportation so you can get to your job. Whether that's a car payment, insurance, and gas; bicycle maintenance; or your bus fare, you're going to be shelling out money.
There are a number of required expenses like this, which you can consider a sort of "tax" for living within a developed country.
In many places in the world, you don't pay for certain things, like food. Instead, you hunt and gather and live rather nomadically, or you grow your own food instead. You build your own shelter using what's around you, without the need for building permits. Hell, maybe you live in a developed country and pay a ton in taxes and thus have a low post-tax income, but those taxes eliminate other expenses like healthcare from your pile of bills.
Then there's purchasing power parity. If you make $30,000/year in the U.S., then that income gives you greater purchasing power in rural areas and absolute shit purchasing power in very large cities (e.g. San Francisco). You can quite literally live like a king on that money in some countries, but in others you'll be lucky to manage to pay your bills. What might cost only pennies in some places could cost several, dozens, maybe hundreds of dollars elsewhere.
This is why the cost of living index is a thing.
As an aside, I can't stand that interface. Forcibly scrolling me to the next section before I've even had a chance to finish reading the current one is terrible UX, and I have a fairly decent reading pace.
I think a valuable addition would be to compare the income to a location-adjusted cost of living. Then add something like "if you don't meet that, don't bother donating, we'll bother someone else. And if you meet it, it could suggest giving 10/20% of disposable income away, and maybe 50% for illustration purposes.
And yeah, they shouldn't drag me down the page.
A cool way to think about this would be the fish in a pond
Example 1 is your country is the size of the pond and your income is the size of fish
Or what it the world was one giant pond how big of a fish are you
... and yet, somehow, I still earn only just enough to make ends meet.
As lots of other people have already pointed out, this website is extremely misleading. It fails to take into account the cost of living.
Some years ago, I attended a talk by Sir Bob Geldof (paid for by my then-employer - long story). In his talk, he said that if the whole developed world donated just 2% of its GDP to the undeveloped world, poverty would be solved instantly. Since then, I've made it my goal to donate 2% of my post-tax income (I figure my taxes are already paying for a form of charity as welfare payments) to charities. (I have two preferred charities, and I give 1% to each.)
But 10%? That's a bit much. I'm not religious. I don't do tithes.
Why must people insist on making it their business on how others should handle their money. I find it offensive. Charity is a personal choice.
A bit of factual information and some suggestions on how best to help others is offensive to you?
There's a lot more I typed and deleted here, but I'll leave it at this: why?
I do not find the posting offensive. I should have been clearer, I apologize. I find the topic of people suggesting how I should be charitable or soliciting monies from me offensive.
I've been reading the wonderful 80 000 Hours Career Guide, and they have a link to this site in Part 3. It's honestly amazing to see, how much more you have than most other people and how much good even 10% of your income may do, including saving at least one person's life a year.
(If they could also stop stealing the scroll, that would be nice…)
Do you realise how big a part of your income 10% is, net or total? It's more than a month's income, 1/10. A year has 12 months in it.
This is not really fair. Yes, my family's income miiight get us almost above the mean of the world in terms of income, but what does that mean, and how come we can give up on 1/10 of our income? Most of that money pays the bills and the foodstuffs. We can maybe freely use nearly a quarter of it in the summer when we don't need to pay obscene amounts for heating. And we need heating Nov--Mar. Let's discard that, and let's discard our non vital needs, and let's say we need to spend 6/10 of our income to be able to live. That leaves 1/10 of income per person per year. And this tells me that we could give up one persons yearly allowance to charity, or each of us a quarter of what we have. And this is a gross simplification, ignoring say educational costs (my brother is uni student, has scholarship; I'll do masters this fall), commute, clothing, etc. And we're lucky enough to not pay rent. All the while when obscene amounts of money is poured into making stupid wars and rushing around in helicopters and driving cars that drink petrol and iPhones and round trips to cities light years away for dinner. Hope that's a joke. But an offensive joke then, because we're a family of 4 that tries to live a decent life with the ~TRY5000/year that's left to us after taxes, bills and foodstuffs, and giving 10% of that means we can't have a few fun moments for us, like having a coffee out or hanging out with friends, or any emergency money. If it was 1%, 2%, maybe, but 10% of net income is a huge amount of money. It's more than a month's expenses. I'd love to help, but I can't be that selfless, sorry. Go ask your governments to spend less on building and selling killing machines, and exploiting Africa and Southeast Asia (not-so-)behind the curtains please. Also, ask the people who spend my month's worth of life and leisure expenses on a fancy dinner table.
Also, that's is a horrible horrible website. You don't need ajax.google.com to calculate a few percentages, and why do you need JS if you're already making a GET to the server w/ form values? These guys like asking too much of everything, apparently.